All the Way (23 page)

“Don’t say it’s gone. I can bring it back. Don’t say it!” A plea choked his words.

Now who’s begging?
Blake glared.

“Oh, Jack.” She shook her head sorrowfully. Blake assumed
she was simply appeasing the guy so
he wouldn’t flip out. Yet Blake’s stomach pitched when he heard compassion sweeten her tone. “I just don’t feel for you what you feel for me. The relationship would never be equal, and that isn’t fair to either of us.”

Jack’s lashes lifted. A look of pathetic, unrequited adoration spilled from his gaze to cover Layla with a sticky web of neediness.

Going
slackjawed, Blake ran a hand down his face.
Holy Christ. Johnson thinks he’s in love with
Layla.

Then a shudder of recognition ran through his body. Because Blake suspected the same thing—of himself.

He shut his eyes tight, turned away from the sight of the two of them engaging in a past Blake had no part of. Seeing them look at each other with a recognition he couldn’t participate in, something between them he couldn’t understand or change, took a chisel to his heart. It began to chip away at him, cutting, slashing.

God, he would
break apart if Layla picked Johnson.

That’s when Jack’s tone changed. Blake’s head snapped up, eyes narrowing.

“Then you leave me no other choice.” Jack’s words were spaced like a threat.

The hair at the back of Blake’s neck stood on end. He spoke in a low murmur of warning. “Johnson—”

“Stay out of it!” Jack’s voice cracked with unspent fury, his face reddening as he gestured with his gun. He jerked his head toward the passenger side of the Crown Vic. The door opened.

Blake held his breath. There was no telling what violence or threats Jack had used to coerce cooperation, if it turned out to be Rob. Or what violence and threats were about to be issued.

Blake’s eyes closed for a split second.
Please don’t let it be Rob.

When he opened them, he watched the passenger door yawn wide. A pair of combat boots met the ground and sank in the caked mud as a young-looking man stood up. Jack’s passenger turned.

A face Blake didn’t recognize stared straight at him.

With an exhale, Blake sent a glance of gratitude heavenward.

Of course, now that he knew it wasn’t Rob, this presented a whole host of new problems. Mainly, how to avoid getting shot as he tried to protect Layla from her ex’s abduction.

Jack’s eyes glowed with a demonic light. Gone was the pitiful appeal and pleading voice of a boy who wanted the person he loved to love him back. The replacement was a man who oozed a chilling aura of bitter hate and demented entitlement. If Jack got to Layla in this crazed state, he would damage her, physically and emotionally. Blake couldn’t let that happen.

“Layla, no matter what he says, don’t go near him,” Blake told her, while he kept his gaze locked on
the passenger.

“Shut the hell up!” Jack screamed at him, then refocused on Layla. “Don’t listen to him. I’m the one you need. I’m the only one who can take you to your brother.”

“What?” she gasped.

“He’s with a biker gang. I know everything. And I know how to find him, exactly where to look, when we get to Sturgis.”

“But…how?”

“Because I introduced them,” Johnson replied, regaining his cool. Fear twisted Layla’s features. It seemed to fuel his craving to be in control, to have Layla at his mercy. The realization sickened Blake.

Layla’s mouth tightened in shock. “How could you have done such a thing?”

“Rob was poking around in places he had no business being. I needed some way to get him out of my hair—and get you to come back to me.”

“Jack!” Fire ignited in her eyes. “You can’t
make
people do things. You can’t force me to come back to you.”

“Oh, yes I can.”

“What have you done to him?” The agony in her gaze made Blake’s chest ache and his hands clench. “What have you done with Robby?”

“Nothing.
Yet.”

“Don’t you dare touch him! Don’t go near him, do you understand me?”

“Or what?” Jack mocked. “What could you possibly do to hurt me, Layla, except refuse me? Oh, wait, you already did that. Looks like you’re fresh out of leverage.”

Tears glittered in her eyes. “Jack, it’s me you want to punish. Please, don’t go after Robby.”

Johnson flashed an evil grin. “I like the way you beg me.”

Possessive jealousy burned and clawed through Blake’s veins. Unable to hold back any longer, he
darted forward.

“Ah, ah, ah,” Jack warned. “Johnny?”

The passenger tapped something on the roof of the undercover car. The clang of metal on metal echoed to him. Through the waves of heat rising from the black roof, Blake saw a dark object cradled in the passenger’s palm. A gun.

Blake drew up sharply. He settled an equally lethal look on the passenger, whose dark eyes were shaded beneath the shadow of the baseball cap he wore low on his forehead. Despite the shadow, Blake saw something that made him do a double-take. Blake blinked, peered at the guy, wondering…was that…a wink?

“Now, back to your begging, sweetheart.” Jack’s upper lip curled with sneering pleasure. “That’s something I could get used to, all the way to Sturgis. If you come with me, you’ll see for yourself that little Robby’s okay. But if you don’t come with me…” His pause of silence drew out the threatening possibilities. “Well, I’m sure you can imagine what might happen to a teenage kid playing with the big boys.
Danger that could
be prevented if you come with me.
If we rescue him together.”

“Never,” she shot back.

“Then I can’t be responsible for what happens to him, right as he turns eighteen. He won’t be a juvenile delinquent anymore. He’ll be an adult facing serious jail time.”

“No!”
Layla rushed forward and slashed her arms through the air in front of Jack, as if she could physically prevent that possibility. “
No
,” she demanded again to his face.

“
Yes
. Oh, yes, Layla. But that’s up to you.” Jack drew an index finger down her cheek. She recoiled, slapped his hand away.
He glowered at her. “Whatever you choose, it will alter your brother’s life. Only you can decide which fate is in his future.”

Seconds passed in silence.

Blake dropped his chin to his chest, hooking his thumbs through his front belt loops. It felt like each of his major organs shut down as the minutes ticked by.

This was it. They had arrived at their first make-it-or-break-it test of trust.

True, he could risk a bullet and race over to her. Or he could shout reminders of all of Johnson’s grievous offenses, his bone-deep cruelty and heartlessness. Blake could take any number of actions. None mattered.

Everything came down to the duty Layla carried inside her, woven into every fiber of her being. Her duty to her brother.

Whoever she believed best fit to help lead her to Rob, that’s who she’d choose.

The proof lay in the question she’d issues to Johnson. Blake didn’t look up, only listened to the tension-packed pauses between her questions as she asked, “Jack, how do you know so much about my brother? What part do you play in all of this?”

Blake looked up, startled by her brilliance. Why hadn’t he considered that?

There sure seemed to be another layer of subtext going on here. After all, Jack was carrying out
some primary mission in South Dakota, confirmed by Officer Munson.

Did it intertwine with Layla’s objective? Was the bigger picture more complex and intertwined than Blake had first assumed?

“Jack,” she prompted quietly, “I’m not moving until you answer me.”

Johnson’s eyes narrowed. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“You’re either lying about this whole thing, or you’re controlling it somehow. I want to know where you stand.”

“Then know this.” Johnson straightened. Rays of late-afternoon sunlight slanted against his back and cast a shadow of menace over Layla. She shivered but didn’t budge. “If you don’t come with me now, you will beg for my help later.”

“Why? What power do you have?”

“All the power I need to make you come back to me.”

“Are you going to threaten Robby somehow?”

“Don’t need to. He’s riding with a biker gang, Layla. They’re bad people who do very bad things—the illegal kind that I’ll be watching and waiting for.”

“So you can’t tell me right this second exactly where Robby is.”

“I know who he’s with!” Jack hollered in her face. Blake’s nostrils flared but he kept still. “When I bust them, your brother will be there,
too, on the ground in handcuffs. Who but me knows he’s just an innocent kid who got in with the wrong people? Who but me will let him go before the local police haul everybody to jail?”

So this was police business, undercover work, Blake realized. With a handy blackmail element Johnson would take advantage of in a hot minute. The same MO he’d used against Blake last year.

“You need me, Layla,” Jack continued. “Your brother needs me.”

Layla’s silence was profound. The quiet hit Blake like a clap of thunder and reverberated through him,
rattling his insides like empty jars shaking on a glass shelf.

“I’m the one thing standing between his big, bright future and jail time. Only you can save him.
If
you come with me.”

She tucked her hair behind her ears, hands trembling slightly. “And if I don’t?”

Jack snarled, “Then you can visit little Robby behind bars.”

Blake watched Layla’s expression cool, then
harden. “I guess you’ve made up your mind, then.”

“I’m waiting for you to make up yours!”

“My brother will still be your target. No matter what I do. Even if I go with you.”

“But I can save him, Layla.” Now Johnson was the one trembling. “I’d risk my badge for you.”

She drew herself up, her body taut and unyielding. “I’d never leave my brother’s fate in your hands. And I will
never
come back to you.”

Blake began to breathe again.

“You say that now,” Johnson replied, steadying his voice. But Blake saw a vein throb in Jack’s neck, betraying the effort it took him to remain under control. “I wonder if you’ll feel the same when Rob’s in my police car and I’m taking him into custody, when one little word from you will make all the difference. I think you’ll change your mind.”

“I guess we’ll see. Won’t we?”

Jack’s jaw dropped, disbelief widening his eyes. “You’re not coming?”

“Oh, I’m coming to Sturgis,” she told him, her eyes flashing. “Just not with you.”

Johnson spluttered incoherent words of shock, disconnected pleas, irate warnings.

Layla held up her hand. Blake felt the brokenness inside him weld back together with her words. “Take your threats elsewhere, Jack. They won’t work on me anymore.”

“Then I know what will.” Johnson raised his hand.

Thoughts fled. In the next moment Blake sprang.

Any second he expected to feel a bullet
rip through his flesh but he’d still break every bone in Johnson’s hand, maybe his skull too, before he’d let the guy touch Layla.

Within two thundering heartbeats Blake had Johnson’s arm twisted behind his back, pinned against his car. Blake spared a brief glance at the passenger, stunned to find the man hadn’t raised his gun.

The guy stood relaxed, contentedly watching. A single, almost imperceptible nod answered Blake’s questioning glance. The guy almost seemed to be encouraging Blake.

The wordless reassurance drew more curiosity than it resolved. But it was enough.

Blake returned his attention to Johnson, who cringed and hissed in pain. “Get your hands off me. I’m a cop, you freak.”

A scathing, humorless laugh escaped Blake’s tight jaw. “A freak, huh?
Why, because I can break you with one hand—without using a badge or a gun?”

“You’re assaulting an officer. I have a witness!” Jack choked out as
Blake’s forearm crushed his windpipe.

“So do I.” He flicked a glance back at Layla, who’d turned
an unhealthy shade of white. Blake turned back and said in Jack’s face, “She’s under my protection from now on. I suggest you stay the hell away from of us. And Rob. Am I clear?” He added just the right amount of pressure to Jack’s twisted wrist. “Or do I need to give you a little more incentive?”

“It’s clear,” Johnson managed hoarsely.

“Here’s how it’s going to work. I’ll release you. You’ll get into your car—” Blake intensified the pressure to force a sound of compliance “—and you’ll stay there until Layla and I get on the bike and onto the freeway. Everything clear so far?”

Johnson’s nod was jerky and desperate.

“When I look back in my mirrors, I’d better not see you. And I mean for the rest of our trip. Or I’ll drag you onto the side of the road and finish this. Got it?”

“Yes,” Jack gurgled in agony.

Blake nodded. “Finally we’re coming to understand one another.”

Before removing his vice grip on Johnson, Blake raised his eyes to the passenger. One side of the man’s mouth hitched upward, the thin line of his black goatee curving around the hint of a smile. They looked at each other over the dark roof of the car.

Then Blake’s gaze fell to the passenger’s hand. The gun hadn’t moved.

Blake believed he and Layla would be safe. As if to underscore the belief, the passenger offered another brief nod.

Then the man followed that with a startling gesture. A familiar one.
He made a peace sign with his left hand, crossed his arm over his chest and tapped the two fingers
under his right shoulder twice.
Peace out
—the way Rob always said “goodbye.”

Blake froze. The guy knew Rob.

That was the best explanation for the silent code he’d been relaying to Blake since the wink. Again, more questions rose up instead of answers, but this was a start.
More to go on than they’d had before. It looked like Jack’s untimely arrival had resulted in an advantage. An unexpected ally.
Thank you, Johnson
.

Blake shifted his concentration down to Jack, who hadn’t noticed Blake’s interchange with the passenger. Too busy squirming under excruciating pain. As an added reminder, Blake said, “You’re going to get back in your car, Jack. And you’re going to let Layla leave. No more threats. Right?”

Johnson nodded.

“Good.” Blake released him, turned his back and walked away.

Blake’s gaze locked with Layla’s. Fear clashed with relief in those deep blue depths.

All Blake wanted was to pull her into his arms and hold her for an eternity. But they didn’t have a second to spare.

Assuming Johnson kept his word.

Of course, he didn’t.

Blake only had to see Layla’s eyes widen and her mouth open around a shout of warning. He’d expected Johnson’s betrayal.

Whipping around, Blake ducked, twisted and narrowly avoided the stunning jolt of Jack’s Taser. “I’ve had enough of your sorry ass,”
he spat.

Blake moved with lightening precision. He landed a cross-chop on Johnson’s wrist. A howl ripped through the air. The Taser dropped to the ground. Blake kicked it toward Layla, but he wasn’t finished with Johnson yet. While
Jack gripped his pained wrist, Blake deftly snatched both of Jack’s guns from the holsters and snapped them apart. Emptying the rounds, Blake stuck them in his back pockets and threw the empty weapons at Johnson’s feet.

Jack threw Blake a vicious scowl. “What now, Black Belt Boy? You gonna attack me with one of your kung-fu moves?”

Blake stood calmly in front of him.
“Nope.”

“What then?” Jack dropped his wrist to go on the defensive, his hands slicing the air like some bad B movie actor. “C’mon, Desanto. Give me your best Karate Kid crane move. I’m ready. Wax on, wax off, right?” he mocked with a sneer.

“Sure, Johnson.”
Blake smiled. Then he hauled back and slammed his fist into Johnson’s jaw, snapping the guy’s head back. The loud crack of knuckles hitting bone frightened a nearby flock of crows that took off into the blue sky above them. “That was way more satisfying.
And its judo, asshole.”

Jack came to, shook his head to clear it and refocused his eyes. Just in time to see Layla snuggled against Blake as they took off on Blake’s Harley. While helpless anger built inside him, he followed their trail with his gaze, heard the roar of tail pipes as Blake’s back tire kicked up clumps of muddy earth. They raced through the bumpy parking lot as if Blake drove an off-road dirt bike, not a thirty-thousand-dollar Harley. Then wheat fields swallowed them from the waist down until Blake mounted the entrance ramp and zipped up the freeway.
Jack lost them.

He’d lost her, his precious Layla.

Something thick and indecipherable began to build in the hollow reaches of his heart.

Jack released a cry of agony. His worthless shout drove the flock of birds back into the sky, black against blue. At the same time he felt an angry bruise forming under his left eye. It tightened, throbbed.

Futility drenched his hopes until they dripped with vengeance. That bastard. How dare he? How
dare
he?

Blake doesn’t matter
.
Jack hauled his battered body up from the ground, swayed slightly until he gripped the open window to anchor himself. Layla mattered. He couldn’t let Blake distract him from what mattered, here. Desanto was a nuisance. Nothing more. So was his sidekick.

His gaze snapped to Carlos. “What the hell’s your problem?” Jack hollered at him, and Carlos blinked innocently.

“What, man? You said you could handle him, that I was a just precaution and shouldn’t interfere.”

“Yes,” Jack growled. “A precaution against getting my face split open!”

Johnny spread his hands. “Just following orders, dude.”

“Yeah, well, feel free to stray when the mood strikes. Dickhead.”

“I told you I wasn’t good at fake-outs. I work drug deals. Not pansy threats.”

“Then you stick to what you’re good at, and the rest of this trip should go according to plan,” Jack said through his teeth. Then muttered, “Something’s got to.”

“You think she’ll come back to you, man? After the bust, and all that?”

Jack didn’t like the breezy way Johnny said that. As if he were speaking of some hypothetical, and not the real, pending drug bust they were about to pull off. It sounded like Johnny wasn’t taking this seriously. Jack’s final chance to have the life he wanted, and deserved. “You think something’s amusing about all this?”

“Naw, man.” Johnny shrugged. “Just asking.”

“I’m the undercover officer. That means I get to ask the questions. Not you. Let’s get out of here.” Jack shielded his eyes, spotting police lights in the distance. “Before the boys in blue show up and ask questions I don’t feel like answering.”

“For the record, I won’t tell anybody that dude whooped your ass.”